


The Mission

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 18:02:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint spends three months thinking Phil is dead until he shows up, alive. Natasha’s POV on what those three months were like.</p><p>Natasha&Clint friendship, Clint/Coulson established relationship, hints at Steve/Natasha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mission

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celeste9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Real (Touch Me and See)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/695133) by [celeste9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9). 



> A remix of celeste9's beautiful story "Real (Touch Me and See)."

Natasha had thought about it: what she would do when it happened. 

When Clint finally got killed.

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in him. She trusted his skills. And he wasn’t reckless exactly (and that was mostly thanks to Coulson, she assumed). But Clint was always in some precarious spot. He made a habit of leaping between buildings to get a better vantage point. And on undercover ops, he was more likely to get shot for being a smartass than for breaking cover.

So Natasha was prepared for the possibility of losing the only man she considered a friend – not an ally, not a friendly coworker, but a _friend_ – and one of the two men she’s ever really trusted to have her back. The other man, of course, was Coulson.

Coulson was the other concern she had for when Clint died. She knew that Coulson would be stoic on the surface. He would take two days off and come back somber but unruffled. People at work would think that he was handling it well, and the quality of his work wouldn’t suffer. 

Underneath, he would be falling apart. 

Natasha has always seen how much Coulson loved Clint; she could tell on the day they first met that Coulson loved Clint so much it almost scared himself. And she knew that she would be the one to insist on helping Coulson if anything happened, regardless of whether Coulson claimed to be fine or gave her that rare threatening glare that everyone else at SHIELD was so afraid of.

So she did have a plan, as much as Natasha hated having to have a plan for this. She would be there for Coulson when Barton got killed. It was only right that this would be her job. Coulson wasn’t going to cry on her shoulder, but he would accept her company, eat dinner with her, make meaningless conversation. Let her take away just a hint of the sting of his life alone. 

And Coulson would do the same for her. Because she wouldn’t have lost the love of her life, but she would definitely have lost her best and only friend. So that was the plan: Coulson and her, keeping each other from falling apart, as long as they needed to.

But when it turned out that Coulson was the one who died, and that Clint was the one falling apart, Natasha realized: she wasn’t prepared. 

It was Coulson, of all people, who went up against a superior force alone and with no backup. 

She couldn’t even blame herself for assuming that would be Clint.

She still tried to do her best to help. To be the friend to Clint that he had been to her, to give him something when he had nothing. But then months starting passing and Clint wasn't getting any better. 

She was starting to think that she might not be able to do anything for him at all. 

\--

After Coulson dies, Natasha sleeps at Clint’s place every night. 

The Avengers invite her to move to the tower with them, and Fury thinks it’s a good idea, so she does. They ask Clint too, but he says no, and even Fury isn’t forcing his hand these days; even Fury can see when a branch is about to snap.

She gets to know the other Avengers, gathers her own personal intel stores on them, their likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses.

In other words, she hangs out with them. She likes Pepper, and she likes Tony better than she remembered; she concludes that Pepper is good for him. She learns that Bruce is pretty good at keeping his calm, which helps her own calm considerably, and sees that Thor is lovesick for Jane in ways that she should find vaguely repulsive but instead finds cute. 

She starts sparring with Steve, and for once, it’s a challenge to subdue a man. A few times, she wins by making him lose concentration with a particularly provocative innuendo; when it allows her to pin him to the floor, he looks at her admiringly, nods to acknowledge her skills. After she wins this way in at least five sparring sessions, he tries it too. Her legs are wrapped around his waist and she has him on a knee, and he makes a comment – a clumsy, awkward comment that’s a little too respectful to arouse or offend, but it’s Captain America using a double entendre to distract _her_ with _his_ sexuality, and she can’t help it. She bursts out laughing and lets go, lets him retreat as he smiles. She can see that he’s embarrassed about what he said – he knows it was a weak attempt at being scandalous -- but proud that he found the courage to try her methods. 

She had thought that living with people would be terrible, but eventually she decided it wasn’t so bad. They gave her plenty of space, didn’t try to make her talk about her work or her past. Usually being around others – having to be around agents other than Barton or Coulson - just made her feel more alone. But somehow, here, she felt less alone. They weren’t like Clint or even Coulson. But they were okay.

And if anyone noticed that she left every night and came back in the morning, they knew better than to ask how the Black Widow spent her sultry, espionage-filled nights.

Of course the truth was, she spent them lying chastely next to Barton, the fingers of his hand interlaced with hers as he tried to fall asleep. 

She and Clint usually didn’t talk much. But then they didn’t need words for most things. He would look at her at night like he was desperate for her to stay, to not leave him alone in the bed that he and Coulson had spent so many nights in. She couldn’t even consider leaving. 

Usually, he was very, very drunk.

In the morning, he would wake and turn to her, and he would remember why she was there instead of Phil. And his heart would break all over again. 

She hated being the first thing he saw in the morning. She hated starting each day with the sight of Clint breaking in two. But she was afraid of what would happen if she left in the middle of the night. She was afraid of what Clint would do if he woke up alone. 

So she always stayed. 

\--

Clint has a lot of trouble with his new handlers. A long list of them. 

Clint doesn’t care.

She can’t blame him.

He works well with the Avengers, though. They all try – with varying degrees of success – to be sensitive to his situation, but Natasha thinks it’s because Coulson really wanted the Avengers Initiative to happen. Coulson believed in it, and Clint still doesn’t want to let Coulson down. She thinks that being in the Avengers is good for him.

Usually. Once, after a mission that almost got all of them killed, they are lying together in Clint’s bed and he tells her: 

“I thought I saw Phil today.”

She pauses. “You didn’t.” It’s important that he knows that. Keeping his mind together is more important than making him feel good.

“I know.” He laughs, sort of, more of a groan. “I know I’m losing it, Tash. I know.”

“What did he say?” she asks.

“He said, ‘Agent Barton, don’t even think about trying to make that jump.’” Clint smiles at her.

She smiles back. “That’s exactly what he would have said.” Maybe hallucinations aren’t all bad; if Clint had gone for the leap, he would probably be dead right now. And then she really would be all alone….

“Do you think there’s something wrong with me, Tasha? Like, really wrong?” _Do you think I shouldn’t be in the field?_

Not being in the field. Now that would really kill Clint.

“Have you imagined him any other time besides when you were about to do something incredibly, stupidly dangerous? Like, something really, really, really stupid?” she asks pointedly.

“No,” he says, grimacing at her little scolding.

“Then… I think it’s just that your subconscious knows that Phil wouldn’t want you to throw your life away.”

He sighs. “It’s not good, you know? To not know what’s real…. I can’t lose my grip on reality, Tash.”

She pauses. “I won’t let you,” she says, voice like steel. It comforts him, this promise, this strength, and he leans into her, tries again to close his eyes and sleep. 

She has no idea how she’s going to keep this promise, but she knows she has to make it.

\--

Clint doesn’t hallucinate Phil again. She asks him about it once in a while, but he says no. He’s a good liar, but she’s a better lie detector, so she knows it’s the truth.

She’s relieved. For a little while. But other than that one small relief, she doesn’t see that he’s getting any better. He still spends his time drunk, angry, reckless, or broken. 

One day, he tells her about Phil’s safehouses. 

Secret locations that even SHIELD and Fury don’t know about. Backup plans in case he or Clint ever needed to lay low from _everyone._ A few times they had even used them for private getaways, just the two of them, when their job had stopped them from taking off time for a real vacation far away. 

Natasha understood what he was telling her: there were four apartments around the city full of Coulson’s stuff. And Clint didn’t know what to do about it.

Natasha understood why. When Coulson’s home had been cleaned out, they had followed the instructions in his will and sold everything and given it to charity. But the personal items went to Clint, who had put the boxes in the attic without opening them, completely unable to look at what was inside. There was no way Clint could clear out the safehouses alone.

The next morning, Natasha called Steve and to cancel their plans to go to the classic car show. Clint drove them to the first safehouse. When they got there, his hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. 

She could see that he was terrified. She could see that the last thing he needed was to rummage through a space full of memories.

“I’ll be done in an hour,” she told him, grabbed the key, and ran up the stairs to the safehouse. 

A safehouse is designed to be pretty bare bones. The kind of place you would run to with absolutely nothing in your hands and no place else to go. Enough furniture and décor to make it look lived-in if anyone finds it, but with no identifying information just in case. Coulson’s safehouse was comfortable, in good taste, but not lavish; Phil had clearly decorated it himself. 

Spies always have secret caches, and so it took her a while to thoroughly check the apartment. She found the standard package of fake passports, clothes, First Aid Kit, and cash. 

She also found a picture of Clint. 

It was a security risk, Natasha knew – to have a picture of an agent in a place designed for people with targets on their backs. But it was taped to the bottom of a heavy dresser, covered completely by a loose wooden support vee. 

Coulson had apparently decided that if he ever had to hole up and disappear from the world, he couldn’t do it without a picture of Clint. 

The picture looked like it was taken first thing in the morning. Clint’s hair was mussed, his eyes were dazed, but a crooked smile spread across his face, presumably because he had woken up to Coulson.

_So that was what Clint used to look like first thing in the morning._

She could see why Coulson wanted the picture. Clint looked vulnerable in it, goofy even, but there was laughter there, just on the tip of coming out. And then there was the affection in Clint’s eyes, tired as they were.

She could imagine Coulson looking at this picture. She could imagine the joy it would give him, the way it would make his face light up.

She smiled, even as she swallowed down her grief.

She stuck the picture carefully in her pocket and then proceeded to pack up the apartment. She would keep the fake passports since there were some with Clint’s picture and he might need them someday. The cash Clint wouldn’t want, but she would put it in his account and tell him a while after.

She used a tiny portion of her talent to talk the landlord into arranging for movers to come for the boxes and furniture and bring them to a local women’s shelter that could use them or sell them. Coulson had told her once that his mother, before she died, had spent a lot of time volunteering at a place like that. Coulson had looked very proud when he said it.

She went down to the car and told Clint that it was done. 

“He would have liked that,” Clint said about the donation. 

“There was also this,” Natasha said, holding out the picture.

Clint winced. “I don’t need it.”

“Why not?”

He looked straight ahead. “Why would I need a picture of me?”

She frowned. She didn’t like his response.

She was pretty sure she was failing at helping her friend. 

But she nodded and put the picture back in her pocket.

It was the same at the other safehouses. Clint would stay in the car, and Natasha would pack the boxes, persuade the landlord, and find an extremely well-hidden picture of Clint. After the first one, she didn’t tell Clint about the other pictures. She just kept them.

She hoped that someday Clint would be in a place where he would want the pictures back. She was starting to wonder when.

\--

Clint continued to terrify and enrage his handlers. 

The Avengers team tried to be supportive, but Clint avoided them except for work.

A couple of times, Clint takes Natasha to the diner that he and Phil used to go to. They eat cherry pie and talk. She thinks this might be progress, but then the next day, Clint jumps the gun in a HYDRA takedown. Everyone’s okay (on their side, anyway), but she’s not happy.

Clint also continues to drink. A lot. 

He never drank too much when Phil was around.

One night, they are lying in bed and Clint is far too drunk to be coherent; he is so drunk that he has become a philosopher.

He is mumbling about life, about whether it is worth it to try, about whether any of it means anything. The lives they save, the people they fight, the things they would die for: he asks if they are anything, if it might be better to never give a damn about anything again. 

She wants to scream at him. She wants to slap him. She wants to comfort him, but she’s not sure there’s any comfort for him.

She wants to tell him that he’s not allowed to give up. She wants to tell him about the time that she came close to giving up, the time when Clint was away on a six-month mission and she had come face to face with the part of her past that she would have given anything to forget. She had never been so close to shattering, and so close to welcoming it.

Coulson had pulled her aside. “Things are bad. But we don’t get to give up,” he had told her. His voice was hard, he was a handler giving a command; he ordering her to live. But his eyes told her something else: that there were people now who cared about her, who would even mourn her. That she was fighting for them now and not just for herself. Coulson told her that she wasn’t allowed to give up, and she believed him. 

She wants to tell Clint this, she wants to save him the way that Coulson saved her, the way that Clint saved her before that. But it’s gotten to the point that she thinks even saying Phil’s name might break him. 

So she says, “Shhh, go to sleep Clint, go to sleep,” and watches as he closes his eyes, watches as he tries to will himself to sleep, to rest, to forget.

He does sleep, eventually. She still feels like a failure.

\--

The day that Phil comes back, it’s Natasha who notices him first. 

She knows at once it must have been Fury. That all this has been because of Fury.

She doesn’t care. Can’t be bothered to be angry.

Phil is alive.

She looks at Clint and sees that he is terrified to believe what he sees. She nods at him, a promise: _This is real. I would never let you believe this if it weren’t real._

She gives them time alone, nodding at Phil to show that she’s grateful to have him back and heading quickly back to her room at the tower. 

When she gets there, she sits on her bed and rests her head in her hands and cries. 

It is the first time she has allowed herself to cry since Phil’s supposed death. She has always been too focused on Clint. 

When she’s done, she lies back in her own bed, the bed she hasn’t slept in in months, and for once, she feels like she can breathe. 

Phil is alive. 

And Clint is going to make it. That grief isn’t on his shoulders any more, threatening to hold him down and keep him there.

It isn’t on her shoulders either. Her grief, or his.

She lies there a long time. Breathing.

-

Later that night, she heard happy shouts from the other floors of the Tower. She knew that it must be Coulson visiting the team.

The other Avengers were notified by phone after Coulson had shown up at SHIELD, but she wasn’t surprised that Phil had decided to greet them in person.

She came down and saw him, standing next to Clint, holding his hand. Clint smiled at her, wide and silly. It barely looked like him.

There was much talking and hugging, with Clint hovering as close to Coulson as possible. She didn’t blame him. The team had questions, though, especially about why they weren’t told he was alive, and Coulson did his best to explain that he was almost certainly not going to make it and no one wanted to give them false hope. Finally, Coulson admitted that he wasn’t happy about his survival being kept secret either but that they would all just have to deal. Pepper tactfully changed the subject and their mood went back to celebration.

Tony and Thor wanted to throw Coulson “the party to destroy all other parties,” but Coulson said that he just wanted to go home. He looked at Clint when he said it.

Since they would be leaving soon, Natasha went back up to her room to get something.

She caught Coulson by the elevators as he was about to leave. Clint was hugging Pepper good-bye, trying to stay stoic as she told him how happy she was for him (and how he didn’t need to worry about Tony’s plan to whisk them all away on a team vacation to celebrate with Phil, since she would make sure that he understands that the reunited couple needs some alone time).

“Agent Romanov,” Coulson said when he saw her, voice full of affection.

She handed Coulson the pictures from the safehouses. They weren’t hers to take care of any more.

She watched Coulson’s face slowly as he stared down at the picture, at Clint’s goofy, half-asleep smile. As he saw the other pictures she has found. 

He swallowed. “Thank you,” he said, voice breaking. She heard the rest: _Thank you for being here when I wasn’t. Thank you for making sure there was a Clint to come back to._

She nodded at him, accepted a hug from him, and went back up to her room and shut the door. As soon as she was alone, she slid to the floor, leaning loose against the wall. 

She suddenly realized that she was exhausted.

She smiled anyway.


End file.
